Monday 25 September 2017

Re-birth of a dying language!

I was quite fascinated to read a wonderful article on the revival of a delightful language (through its script) in Sunday’s ‘The Hindu’ dated 24 September 2017.

Something unique, quite ‘the rarest of rare’ types, and a revelation of sorts for language enthusiasts of every nation, age, and clime.

The article by Iboyaima Laithangbam titled, ‘Banished Manipuri script stages a comeback,’ was by all means, a ray of hope to linguaphiles all over.

Indeed, one of the main premises of postcolonial studies situates language at the heart of the colonial enterprise and power.

And yes! there’s more to it than meets the eye.

Language is more than simply a means of communication. It conditions our reality and our world-view by ‘cutting up and ordering reality into meaningful units.’

Interestingly, Ngugi wa Thiong’o echoes this sentiment, when he says,

“a specific culture is not transmitted through language in its universality but in its particularity as the language of a specific community with a specific history. Written literature and orature are the main means by which a particular language transmits the images of the world contained in the culture it carries. Language as communication and as culture are then products of each other. Communication creates culture: culture is a means of communication. Language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in the world. How people perceive themselves affects how they look at their culture, at their politics and at the social production of wealth, at their entire relationship to nature and to other beings. Language is thus inseparable from ourselves as a community of human beings with a specific form and character, a specific history, a specific relationship to the world” (Decolonising the Mind 15, 16).

He adds on to say that, language does not just passively reflect reality; it also goes a long way towards creating a person’s understanding of their world! Indeed, “the British Empire did not rule by military and physical force alone. It endured by getting both colonising and colonised people to see their world and themselves in a particular way, internalising the language of Empire as representing the natural, true order of life.” (McLeod 19)

In 1992, linguists attending the International Linguistics Congress in Quebec agreed the following statement:

As the disappearance of any one language constitutes an irretrievable loss to mankind, it is for UNESCO a task of great urgency to respond to this situation by promoting and, if possible, sponsoring programs of linguistic organizations for the description in the form of grammars, dictionaries and texts, including the recording of oral literatures, of hitherto unstudied or inadequately documented endangered and dying languages.

UNESCO did respond. At a conference in November 1993, the General Assembly adopted the ‘Endangered Languages Project’ – including the ‘Red Book of Endangered Languages’ – and a few months later a progress report observed:

Although its exact scope is not yet known, it is certain that the extinction of languages is progressing rapidly in many parts of the world, and it is of the highest importance that the linguistic profession realize that it has to step up its descriptive efforts.

Hence, internalising another language due to, ‘colonial indoctrination,’ results in adverse psychological damage suffered by the people in question.

In 1995 an International Clearing House for Endangered Languages was inaugurated at the University of Tokyo. The same year, an Endangered Language Fund was instituted in the USA. The opening statement by the Fund’s committee pulled no punches:

Languages have died off throughout history, but never have we faced the massive extinction that is threatening the world right now. As language professionals, we are faced with a stark reality: Much of what we study will not be available to future generations. The cultural heritage of many peoples is crumbling while we look on. Are we willing to shoulder the blame for having stood by and done nothing?
According to David Crystal, a host of diverse languages, that exemplify their native aura, are dying today. [Kindly read his book on Language Death].

The plight of the world’s endangered languages should be at the top of any environmental linguistic agenda. It is time to promote the new ecolinguistics – to echo an ancient saying, one which is full of colourful and wide-awake green ideas. It needs to be promoted urgently, furiously, because languages are dying as I write. Everyone should be concerned, because it is everyone’s loss.

And that’s because we need diversity. This is a direct extension of the ecological frame of reference: the arguments which support the need for biological diversity also apply to language.

And well, today, the news making headlines is -

A vigorous campaign has brought back the Manipuri script, into popular use including newspapers.

Linguaphiles indeed, would be a happy lot!

The Manipuri script, over 3,500 years old by some accounts and edged out by a Bengali import, is on a revival course, with street signs, newspapers, literature and even records of Assembly proceedings adopting it.

The script was lost to the speakers of the language when Shantidas Gosai, spread Vaishnavism in the region in 1709, during the reign of Pamheiba. The King decreed its replacement with that of Bengali.

Books and other written materials in Manipuri were then incinerated. But many of his subjects opposed the imposition and continued to follow dual religions, Vaishnava and Sanamahi. They also preserved the Manipuri script.

June 20 marked a milestone in the revival efforts, when college teachers completed a 10-day reorientation programme.

Manipur’s Education Minister T. Radheshyam said, “It is a must for college and university teachers to be well-acquainted with the Manipuri script. In due course, it will be taught at the university level.” Necessary teaching resources were readily available, he noted.

Pursuing the restoration plan is Meelal, a registered body with 24 organisations that took off on August 18, 2003. It has been at the forefront of the campaign. Meelal has kept a hawk eye on the use of non-Manipuri words in writing and social media, and in open air theatre, a widely enjoyed form of entertainment.

There are campaigns led by Meelal for teaching of the Manipuri script in schools and colleges, doing away with Bengali-script textbooks. It organises free classes for the young and the old.

Redundant letters

Manipuri belongs to the Tibeto-Burmese branch of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages and has no use for several Bengali letters, some of which its speakers are unable to pronounce correctly. Writers are known to use Bengali letters whimsically, with the result that writers use different spellings for several words. Personalised spellings imposed by university professors on the research scholars have aggravated the linguistic problem.

Militant enforcement

Occasionally, activists have used extreme methods to advance the cause. Signboards without the Manipuri script were defaced with tar. A plaque at a city flyover was vandalised and the government library in Imphal, which housed a considerable number of Bengali books, was burned down one night by unidentified protesters.

Thanks to the revivalist moves, Manipuri language newspapers have to publish at least one news item in the traditional script on their front pages.

Hoardings, billboards and other material for public events must also be in the script. Organisers have had to tender public apologies if this requirement was defied or ‘forgotten’. Also, vehicle owners must display their registration numbers in the Manipuri script.

The plan to return to the old has faced rough weather. Litigation and objections by some groups prompted the government to drag its feet over the reintroduction. The State government accepted the 27-alphabet script in 1980, but some groups claimed that the 18-letter, 27-letter or 36-letter alphabets were the ‘genuine’ ones.

While it is also called ‘Meitei,’ the late Lt. Col. Haobam Bhuban, a former Minister, demanded that it be called the Manipuri script for three reasons: it is the one used for the royal chronicle of the kings of the land, King Gambhir signed the Jeeree Agreement of April 18, 1833 in it, and most importantly, in 1979 the Manipur Assembly, under the leadership of Yangmasho Shaiza, of the Tangkhul tribe, approved the 27-letter Manipuri alphabet.”

The State language is also spoken by Manipuris in several places, including Assam, Tripura and other northeastern States, and Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Writing on the wall

The results of the campaigning are visible. It is no accident that many public signboards no longer have the Bengali script. Widely published newspapers that have not gone Manipuri, like Poknapham, Sangai Express and Hueiyen Lanpao, are losing younger readers. Since 2006, students have been taught in the Manipuri script, creating a new generation of educated Manipuris.

Publishers with a longer-term view of the market began printing newspapers in the Manipuri tradition, and in English. Many organisations, including those supporting insurgency, use Roman in lieu of the Bengali script for their press releases. Most writers have stopped using the Bengali script, while others have rewritten their old books using the traditional alphabet.

In another move that has received a big welcome, Manipur Speaker Y. Khemchand recently announced that one copy of the State Assembly proceedings would be recorded in the Manipuri script.

Long live Manipuri! Long live languages!

With additional inputs from
Crystal, David. Language Death. London: CUP, 2000. Print
McLeod, John. Beginning Postcolonialism. New Delhi: Viva Books, 2010. Print.
Image courtesy: thenortheasttoday.com

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